Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Read it. Reviewed it http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/...me-of-the-wind/

am very much looking foward to reading the next instalment.

someone told me that the book doesn't sound very exciting
and I'm sorry if that is the impression I created
I found the book wholly absorbing and very readable and exciting.

I looked into this a little bit and it looks interesting to me but I have a question before I pick it up. Is the series finished or not? The impression I have is that he originally submitted it as one monster volume and it was decided to split it into a trilogy. That tells me that the series is finished and just awaits publishing. Is this true? I refuse to enter any Fantasy series, any book series I suppose, that is not already finished for fear of what I call "Martin Gaps" between books.

Or the "Jordan Gap," where the writer dies mid-series.

But no, this series is not yet finished. Last I checked, there is no release date for the second volume either -- though Rothfuss, in his blog, says he's working on it.

second volume is set to be release in two weeks. sez amazon. I've it on pre-order.

I only see the one set to be released June 2010.

That is the problem I have - conflicting info. One place says the work was one big pile and has been split into 3 and another says still working on it. I would be happy with an answer that says "almost finished just some editing" but I can't find that. Maybe I should just wait until it's all been released and buy the trilogy box set I'll want anyway.

http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2008/01/asides/...elay-explained/

So life happened and there are delays. Fair enough, Life happens. Valid excuses or not if I do give this series a shot it won't be until it's completely published. Preferring the sort of Fantasy that can be a series or can be stand alone works, I'm thinking of Miéville's Bas Lag for example.

yeah. awful. when amazon notified me I was cross for half an hour.

someone commented on my blog and disagrees.
http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/...nd/#comment-777

I've spent the past half hour combating the merits of the criticism. Huh. Anyone else here read the book?

"bloody hell!" said Ron, archaically, tripping over onefat's top of the range flightofluff scooter, delivered just this morning by wonky wizard dispatch and in clear breach of any remaining owl picket lines,

you have more patience than i ever will, {{{{{{{{{{Marcel}}}}}}}}}}}}}]

so you agree with me?

I took a big stinkin shit on the commenter in a more recent post, which is what she alludes to here, and I'm finding it very admirable that she reacts like this. Unlike a friend of hers who whined in the comment section of said post. heh.

She's, uh, a Harry Potter expert, sort of. Giving talks, writing books. And I really want to take her seriously. Hence the long reply. But why Lacan I have no idea.

yes i agree with you and i cannot take them seriously, which is why i say often enough and especially of late that you have far more patience and generosity about such things than i ever will. Everyone overinvests in the sources they most love, i do. So too Harry Potter fas, scholars, and that's wholly to the good, but with the best will in the world the books don't stand up to close examination or the claims made for them

she wrote a 160 page introduction to shakespeare and a giood chunk of it is about Harry Potter and Hamlet. Hee.


As I said, I mentioned her in a different post. At the time I wrote

http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/...onal-ringcon-2/


and last night a friend of hers, actually another speaker at the convention, dr. frank weinreich, complained

http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/...-2/#comment-774

dude, she has a master's she must be smart...quit arguing with her...you shit on the most telling symbol of intelligence there is: the master's degree. Stand down, sir. I say stand down!

yeah I loved that aside as well.

you're not wrong, that's all i can say. I didn't want to talk about archetypes because i don't consider them to be especially useful, but i've known people who write, think just like this, and i don't get along with them. My friend the film/lit prof is also a pop culture buff, scholar, and again she has far more time and generosity of spirit about such things, but i can hear her, what she'd say, "It's because they don't move into pop culture AFTER having learned what the good stuff is and learning how to think critically etc etc"

that lecture of hers was pure horror. a comparison of twilight and hp and a defense of both against critics (with snarky comments agains byatt and bloom).

I haven’t read the Harry Potter books so I can’t comment on that specific commentary. But I do believe your bare bones analysis about the nature of myth and storytelling is the real key to this series. It’s obvious by the story-within-a-story structure and it’s more telling by the tense that’s developed within the structure.